What Mindhunter gets so right that other true crime shows get wrong
Note: This article contains themes that some readers may find distressing.
It's been almost two years since Mindhunter first carved its way into our hearts and now more people than ever are thrilled to see the show return for a second season – which is fascinating because its appeal lies precisely in the realms of what we don't see.
Through interviews with some of America's most notorious serial killers, FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) discover what drives these men to murder without ever cutting away to graphic depictions of the crimes they reveal.
While most true crime shows take delight in the macabre, Mindhunter eschews the grisly details in favour of the aftermath, swapping out corpses for the chalk outline left behind.
The opening credits establish this from the get-go with brief glimpses of murder interspersed among longer yet more mundane shots of equipment that take centre stage.
Much of the show is based on research conducted by a real FBI agent called John Douglas, who told Digital Spy that, "[Mindhunter] is really conversation, it's conversation [and] it's learning from the bad guys."
That might sound less than thrilling on paper, but by stripping away the schlock of its voyeuristic peers, Mindhunter contains moments of genuine horror within these 'conversations' that unsettle far more than gross-out tactics ever could.
After all, one of the show's scariest scenes yet is the one where Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) hugs Holden in hospital, prompting a panic attack that traumatises him far more than the murderous crimes of his interview subjects.
It's not just this lack of death that sets Mindhunter apart either.
Throughout both seasons released so far, there are practically no jump scares to speak of, and when Ford and Tench investigate a crime scene together, the blood has usually been scrubbed away already before they arrive.
Unlike other shows of its ilk, Mindhunter also refuses to reenact these murders in some kind of flashy visual on screen. Instead, all viewers are left with is a palpable sense of dread which lingers long after the crime scene has been cleared.
Watching violence unfold can be scary, but scenes like this also provide viewers with a sense of release. If that release never comes, then the unease they instil can be prolonged indefinitely, creating a constant tension that refuses to let up.
This is something that Mindhunter excels in, and by avoiding an all-out gorefest like this, the show also avoids some of the typical accusations that plague true crime stories too.
Whether you believe it's ethical or not for shows like this to keep fuelling the public's obsession with murder, one thing you can't accuse Mindhunter of is being gratuitous in its depiction of said crimes.
The only exception to this is in the pilot's first scene when a criminal blew his own brains out in front of our (and Holden's) very eyes. While this initially led viewers to expect more bodies to pile up, it turned out that this was all a smart misdirect designed to play with genre and emphasise the show's subsequent lack of violence.
The old horror adage 'What you don't see is scarier than what you do see' applies to the likes of Mindhunter too, but unfortunately, most true crime stories fail to recognise this. Instead, these shows usually try to out-shock each other in a bid to disturb viewers who are largely desensitised to the genre as a whole.
Back in season one, Tench warned that, "The people we work with have done things that you don’t even want to imagine,” but the show then goes on to make us do exactly that.
In doing so, Mindhunter forces us to view these murderers as real people who walk among us, proving that it's far more effective to craft a true crime show about killers who we never see kill on screen.
Mindhunter is now available to stream on Netflix.
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